And The Carnage Continues

It seems that since their recent merger to become Warner Brothers Discovery, the media giant has set about house cleaning with a vengeance, with a particular focus on DC Comics movies and television.

Before the merger there were a bunch of DC properties in the pipeline, including the cancelled Batgirl movie and projects focused on B and C list properties like Blue Beetle and Justice League Dark.  Don't feel bad if those name don't 'pop' for you.  They're titles that are mid-tier at best, even among comic book fans.  

We had seen promising ideas like a Swamp Thing series come and go under the previous leadership and if I'm honest, WB's recent non-Batman crop of DC Comics properties has been uneven at best.  The CW is...well...The CW.  With the exception of Superman and Lois, they produced a soap opera in spandex for characters like Green Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl that definitely wasn't big screen or even truly mainstream.  Some of us loved the Arrowverse, but it has run its course and will gasp its last after the next (short) season of The Flash.  Stargirl and Superman and Lois are the only CW DC shows left and I don't foresee either lasting much longer.  

One of the brighter spots of the CW over the last few years was Legends of Tomorrow and it was strongly revitalized by the addition of Matt Ryan's John Constantine.  Ryan had played the chain smoking sorcerer on his own show on NBC for a season, but he really got to cut loose on the silly, fun show that was Legends.  We saw some of his tragic back story and got to get to know a complex and broken man who would always try to do the right thing by doing something horrible to get the job done.

  

Originally, John Constantine was modelled after Sting.

That the multi-talented Sting never played him on film still...stings.

 

When Legends got the axe along with the rest of the Arrowverse, Constantine had already moved on from the show with Ryan playing a different character in the last season.  One of the many projects in that WB pipeline I mentioned was a new Constantine series along with a vehicle for another DC Comics magic user, Madame X.  There was also and may still be a plan to adapt Constantine's patchwork team, the Justice League Dark, which would also likely have included sexy sorceress Zatanna, the Swamp Thing and a few other characters from DC Comics motley bunch of magical creatures and practitioners.

Most of us comics fans had hope that we might see Matt Ryan back in the tatty trenchcoat for whatever the next incarnation of Constantine might be.  The idea of John Constantine getting to talk like the adult he is on an HBOMax series with Matt Ryan in the lead and getting to interact with the rest of the DC Comics magical line-up was mouth watering.

 

Matt Ryan's Constantine is almost perfectly comics accurate.

The only thing missing is putting him in an R rated show.

News this week is that the Constantine and Madame X series projects are dead.  In their place, we appear to be getting a sequel to Keanu Reeves Constantine movie.  All around the globe, comic book fans could be heard giving a giant, collective shrug.

I can't fault Warner Brothers Discovery for trying to clean up the hodge-podge approach to DC Comics properties that has been the norm for the last decade or more in their house.  While Marvel and Disney have been staging a takeover of the cultural consciousness of the planet with their Marvel Cinematic Universe juggernaut, WB has been throwing darts at the wall blindfolded.  They've hit with The Batman and had success with a few projects like Wonder Woman and Aquaman.  Other attempts like the upcoming The Flash have limped along for YEARS only to be mired in controversy or outright cancelled like Batgirl.

The thing is, I'm not sure that they've made a really good decision in this case.

 

Keanu is not modelled after Sting.  At all.

Keanu's first Constantine was really 'meh' as comic book films go.  I can forgive that he's not blonde and British as Constantine was designed.  What I can't forgive is that his Constantine isn't witty, sarcastic or nasty the way he has to be in order to actually be Constantine.  A sequel will obviously have star power and might even do okay at the box office, but it isn't likely to be in any way a great film.  I understand the impulse to reach for a sequel and one that will involve a big name must seem like a lifeline to executives at WB, but without a LOT of changes to the mediocre vision of the original, they're not likely to see the returns they envision.

Nothing would make me happier than a great Constantine film that would help usher in a new era of strong DC Comics related content from Warner Brothers Discovery.

It seems to me that retreading a movie that was little more than a ripple at the box office back in 2005 is just more of the same kind of thinking that brought us the big yawn of Superman Returns and the less than spectacular Wonder Woman 1984.  If you are cleaning house anyway, maybe it's time to replace the old furniture too.  Just a thought.